Eighth Man Bound
by TheOtherWillow
Summary: He was only six months into his tenth regeneration, and already the nightmares were threatening to drive him mad.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Eighth Man Bound  
Author: TheOtherWillow  
Disclaimer: I don't own Dr. Who. Talk to the BBC.  
Summary: He was only six months into his tenth regeneration, and already the nightmares were threatening to drive him mad.

Part One – A King of Infinite Space

"O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell  
And count myself a king of infinite space,  
Were it not that I have bad dreams." - Hamlet: II, 2

Even a Time Lord needs to sleep. Admittedly, not a fraction as much as the frail humans he regularly took on as companions, but still. Sleep was a necessity for every sentient race in existence that was still corporeal.

At this point, the Doctor was giving serious consideration to transcending into a non-corporeal form.

It would take, what? Two, three thousand years of concentrated mediation? He mused on the thought silently as he fiddled with handle of his sonic screwdriver. He tried to remember the last time he'd even heard of someone accomplishing it, but came up empty. The Dimensional Ethics Committee had always been so diligent in preventing the kind of damage that created in the Causal Nexus.

Of course, that was Before.

It wasn't as if there was anyone to stop him now, was there? Just a quick millennia or three of introspective silence and poof! Goodbye Doctor, hello one ascended being of energy surpassing the need to sleep. To dream.

The Doctor shook his head at his own folly and let the sonic screwdriver drop into one of his coat pockets. With shaking hands, he threaded his fingers through his tangled hair and leaned his elbows against the console of the TARDIS' time rotor. The counterpoint pounding of his pulses thudded against his temples as he allowed his eyelids to slip close. Surely, just a minute or two of rest wouldn't hurt?

It couldn't have been more than five seconds before he jumped up with a muffled scream. Arms pin wheeling and hearts roaring, he managed to catch himself on one of the support structures before he ended up falling to the grille floor. Hands clutched spasmodically against the TARDIS' familiar structure as he struggled to control his breath. Squeezing his lids shut, he tried to sort through the confusing jumble of images that insidiously slithered behind his eyes every time slumber beckoned:

_Light that burned him, tore him, ate through him. POWER. Power like nothing he'd ever felt, ever imagined. The Power of Creation; his alone for the taking, the asking, begging to be used. "That's what I see. All the time. And doesn't it drive you mad?" A trail of destruction like nothing he'd ever left in his wake. The Oncoming Storm. The Encroaching Darkness "I am the Eighth Man Bound..." and he would travel through time and space just by thinking about it and his every movement would alter history whether he wanted to or not. His voice, falling from a dozen different lips, tickled his mind with menacing whispers, "...you're going, you're gone for ages, already gone, you're still here, just arrived, haven't even met you yet..." and another, and another, one falling after another into themselves. Blending, bending, until finally the whisper is a song, is a symphony, is a scream! And then silence. The emptiness of non-existence and a hole where the Universe should be. Not with a bang, but a whimper...__  
_  
"Doctor?" Rose's voice sliced into his reverie, "Are you alright?"

His eyes snapped open to meet her concerned frown. His lips parted in an attempt to answer her, but still caught up in the memory of his nightmare, tongue and teeth refused to cooperate in forming words. She watched him gawp like a fish for a moment before crossing the room to his side.

"Doctor, talk to me," she said as she laid a hand against his chest. "What's wrong?" The thundering of his hearts struck against her palm in an offbeat staccato rhythm and his eyes held a wild look that she hadn't seen since his last regeneration. He released his death grip on the support column with one hand and used it to cover hers. He leaned forward, pushing his weight off the column with his other hand until he was so close his lips brushed the shell of her ear as he spoke.

"Do you know how rare a stable freethinking Time Lord is?" he breathed into her ear. She jerked her head back in bewilderment. "Doctor?" she queried, confusion staining her pretty features. "All the great Time Lords went mad," he told her solemnly before his eyes rolled up in his head and his body collapsed like a puppet with his strings cut. The echo of her startled yelp as the dead weight of him toppling forward thrust her to the floor reverberated throughout the console room. She was too busy at first trying to wriggle out from underneath him to notice the TARDIS had started moving.

Author Notes - Aside from the Hamlet quote at the top, I also used Dr. Who quotes from The Dying Days novel (eighth doctor, I believe), Dragonfire (seventh doctor), and the Parting of the Ways (ninth doctor). Non-quote Doctor Who research can be found on my livejournal.


	2. Chapter 2

Eighth Man Bound, Part Two:

No sooner did she find herself almost freed from the Doctor's dead weight than the normal chaos of the TARDIS' rematerialization toppled him back over her. With an exasperated huff, Rose doggedly managed to wrestle his unconscious form enough to the side to squirm out from beneath him. She rubbed her back as she sat up, wincing at the crack of vertebrae as she stretched.

"Heavier than you look," she murmured to herself as she leaned over and struggled to roll him on his back. Settling back on her haunches she took the moment to study him. The rapid flick of his eyeballs behind his lids, the quick pulses at his temples, and the shallow pull of his breath were the only movement. "What are you on about now?" she asked his silent form as she recalled his final words before passing out literally on top of her. She repressed a shiver at the memory of the slightly unhinged look in his eyes before they slid closed. _"All the great Time Lords went mad…"_

Shaking off a strange unsettled feeling, she bent over and laid the back of her hand against his cheek. The coolness of the skin beneath her touch seemed normal for him, so she turned her hand around and tapped the side of his face several times. "Doctor!" She said loudly, "Doctor, it's time to wake up!"

The body beneath her palm didn't stir. As time went on with no change, she found herself becoming increasingly frantic. She called him, she shook him, she slapped him, and, in one supremely memorable moment of desperation, even tried kissing him to no avail. He remained still and cool with racing hearts and flickering eyelashes.

She briefly considered trying to get him to the Med Bay, but the recollection of how much trouble she had just getting out from underneath him cut that short. Moving someone who's completely unconscious is never as easy as it looks in the movies. Finally she settled on a quick solo trip for a medical scanner and bedding. Once she managed to wrangle the Doctor into a more sheltered position among a nest of pillows and blankets, she carefully duplicated the steps he'd shown her in his last incarnation to operate the scanning equipment.

Frowning at the results, she did it again. And again. Still, the stubborn little screen displayed the same answer. "His condition is bloody well not optimal!" She snarled at it in frustration, "I'd think if it were optimal he'd be awake!" With a irritated growl she tossed the device onto a leftover pillow.

Turning to look back at the Doctor, she felt a heavy spike of fear and worry hit her heart. She always forgot that he wasn't human. Oh, she knew it consciously; but subconsciously? More often than not, in her head he was just like any other bloke. It was only at times like this when she realized how little she really knew about his species. Was this normal for his people - they go a bit mad and then sleep it off? Was this hibernation? Meditation? God help him if it was another regeneration. She'd just started to get used to this one, if he'd gone and done something to cause that again she was going to kill him the next time herself.

Reaching forward with both hands, she grabbed the lapels of his jacket and hitched him up enough so his head lolled towards her. "Enough of this mucking about!" She yelled in his face with a little shake, "You wake up, Doctor! We go out fighting, yeah? Not having a kip!" A loud thud filled the air and the unexpected shaking of the TARDIS sent her sprawling across his chest.

"What the hell?" She yelped as she scrambled to her feet just as a second slam set the TARDIS rocking. Barely catching herself on the console, Rose scurried over to the view screen. With her heart pounding in her throat, she switched the view between the different perspectives surrounding the TARDIS, but she could see nothing beyond the darkness of night on an alien world. Fiddling with the display, she managed to change the view to something resembling infrared. But for as far as the TARDIS' view screens could show her there was nothing but a barren, desolate wasteland. She fiddled with various knobs and dials trying to get some information on what'd hit them, but unfortunately she'd exhausted her meager skills with the console's viewing equipment. And it wasn't as if scanning for alien tech was ever something she could get the Doctor to show her how to do.

A quick glance showed the Doctor still dead to the world. "You picked a brilliant time to nod off," she drawled sarcastically to the insensate form at her feet.

Unsurprisingly, the Doctor didn't answer.


End file.
